The present invention relates to a device at a pipe and/or a tube.
It is known to connect two free ends of pipes or tubes or to connect a pipe or a tube with a fixed installation with the aid of different types of tube or pipe clamps. These tube or pipe clamps are, as a rule, shaped as a ring, formed from a band, which is tensioned around pipes and/or tubes in an overlapping arrangement, and on the joint formed by these pipes, with the aid of a tensioning device, such as a screw, for example. When the screw is tensioned, the ring is contracted, so that its diameter is reduced, and provides a clamping, action between the tube or pipe clamp and the overlapping and joined pipes.
In the technical fields where pressurized tube and pipe systems are used for gaseous media, it is desirable to minimize pressure drops due to leaking joints between pipes and/or tubes.
Another area of use where the demands for leakproof joints between pipes have increased is i.a. in the motor vehicle industry, and especially in the category of exhaust and charge air systems. Present exhaust systems are required to handle higher pressures and higher temperatures than before, due to increased environmental demands, and than the demands are higher on the leakproof joints between such connections of pipes. The higher demands on the leakproof joints thus originate from stricter environmental demands for cleaner exhaust gases, i.e. less leakage of unfiltered exhaust gases from the exhaust systems into the environment, or leakage in the charge air system into the motor.
A disadvantage with the known tube and pipe clamps is that they do not provide an even clamping action around the whole periphery of the pipe, but the clamping force is variable around the periphery of the pipe. This uneven clamping action entails that the area in which the pipes are overlapping and interconnected, and which is affected by a lower clamping force from the clamp, risks allowing a leakage, so that the medium inside the pipes is allowed to leak out into the environment, which is undesirable.
It is desirable to provide a device for a pipe, said device being tighter around a joint between two overlapping pipes/tubes than previously known devices.